Zara

Zara — Biography

Zara, born Neşe Zara Yılmaz, is one of the best-known female voices in Turkish folk music, who has also acted in series and films and presented television programs. As a child she made eight albums under the name "Neşecik"; as Zara she built a repertoire reaching from folk music to Sufi music and flamenco-flavoured arrangements. She was born on January 15, 1976, in Üsküdar, Istanbul, into a Kurdish family with roots in Adıyaman.

Her path opened with two national first places in an inter-high-school music contest, in 1991 and 1993. She trained in voice at the Istanbul Technical University Turkish Music State Conservatory and in 1996 passed the TRT exam to become a salaried folk-music vocalist. In 1997 she played Amber in the Yunus Emre Müzikali. Her first album, Avuntu, came out in 1998, the same year she shared the lead with Tarık Akan in Atıf Yılmaz's Eylül Fırtınası. Then followed Boyut, Misafir, the two-disc Özlenenler, Zamanı Geldi and the Sufi album Bülbül-i Şeyda, recorded with a symphony orchestra; from 2000 to 2003 she was named best female folk artist at the Golden Butterfly Awards four years running. Her own label ZR Müzik, founded in 2007, released Bahar, Hazine and a 2012 flamenco album made with the İstanbul Flamenko 5'lisi.

On screen she first took the lead in Gelin, then appeared in İpsiz Recep, Eşkıya Dünyaya Hükümdar Olmaz and Mavera. She hosted Zamanı Geldi on TRT 1, Tanrı Misafiri on atv and, with Oktay Kaynarca, Salı Sefası on TV8. She married İskender Ulus in 2002 and separated in 2007; she married journalist Akif Beki in 2012, had a daughter that year, and they divorced in 2016.